#st. martin's press boycott

[triviareads]

my friend created a helpful resource if you'd like to track romance novels (mostly historical romances) that fall under the ongoing St. Martin's Press boycott:

[aroaessidhe]

An employee within the marketing department of Wednesday Books, an imprint of St Martins Press, which is an imprint of Macmillan, has made numerous posts with racist and Islamophobic rhetoric amid the genocide of Palestinians, and the publisher has been silent for months. This employee is also in charge of sending arcs to influencers, and a number of people have noticed a pattern of Arab and Muslim readers not receiving arcs, which is potentially related.

Readers are asking for the publisher to address and denounce the racist remarks from the employee and offer tangible steps for how they are going to mitigate the harm, and until they do so we are boycotting St Martins Press and its imprints: Wednesday Books, Griffin, Minotaur, Castle Point Books, Thomas Dunne Books, and SMP Swerve.

This means not posting about or reviewing these books, though you can still buy and read them.

And more recently, and the reason for my specific post today, sign the petition to make clear the number of community members who are demanding action!

If you want to use a US zip code, why not use 10271 - where the SMP Marketing Department is.

You can find more info/updates at readersforaccountability

[eggcatsreads]

Reminder that the publisher that sent unsolicited and unconsented for sex toys to people is the SAME one still currently under boycott, and that this boycott is explicitly to not do promotion or reviews of their titles. This boycott has been going on since October of 2023, and since they have not responded it is still ongoing.

And yes, this includes any titles you may have on Netgalley (or other arc review sites).

"But wait, my feedback ratio!" I hear you cry.

There's a solution for that. When the boycott started I had about 2 SMP titles, and 1 I had just reviewed. And on NG using the "will not provide feedback" option negatively affects your feedback score, so no, I'm not suggesting that.

Here are the 3 "reviews" for the titles I had from the boycotted publisher.

And then I have not requested or taken any of their titles that they've placed on "Read Now" to try to force an end to the boycott.

Doing this has not affected my acceptance rate for titles I request, by the way. Publishers who rejected me beforehand still do, publishers who generally accepted me still do, and ones where it was a 50/50 are still about the same.

[lexreadsdiversely]

Does bookblr actually know about the SMP Boycott? Cuz I just went through the booklr tag and so many of you are posting about books published by St. Martin's Press. I have to assume that most people in the booklr community just don't know that there's been a boycott going on for months now??

If you hadn't heard about it until now, now you know. It's a marketing boycott that applies to all of St. Martin's Press' related publishing houses as well. You can still buy SMP published books and read them, but we're asked not to provide any free advertising. Basically, no talking about the books on social media, posting pictures or reviews, etc.

[kay-claire]

I read 300 books in 2023 and for some reason decided to make a rainbow of book covers of books I read (these aren't ALL the books I read, and I had way more blue, green and purple covers to add in than pictured here)

[bellasbookclub]

The Bella's Book Club summer reading challenge is BACK for 2024! 📚

As 3B1P wraps up New Moon season, BBC is gearing up for Hot Rec Summer! Have a book (or five) you think book club would enjoy? Now's your chance to recommend it!

How to participate:

Fill out the Google form by June 10th, 2024 with up to five of your recommendations! These can be your own favorites, books you think go with Twilight or the Gothic genre, your favorite cursed books, or even plays, poetry, or nonfiction! Almost anything goes except for:

Books that already appear on Bella's list from Midnight Sun

Fanfiction

In solidarity with the ongoing boycott, books published by St. Martin's Press (see Google form for more info)

2. When the compiled rec list is posted on June 11th, choose five of your fellow BBC readers' recs and read them by early September! Come chat about your picks on the BBC Discord, or link us to your Goodreads/Storygraph review. We'll also be running the challenge on Storygraph so you can track your progress.

Didn't get to read everything you wanted to from last year's reclist? No worries, it's eligible for this year's challenge too! While you're at it, check out last year's reccer spotlights 💡

Happy reccing! 🎉

Bella’s Book Club is an interactive virtual book club created by the Three Books One Plot podcast. Our monthly Discord discussions are open to all! More info here.

[notebookmusical]

saw this on bookstagram from @beffynicolereads + wanted to spread the word on tumblr too —

st. martin's press have now spent over a week ignoring concerned voices in the bookish world about their racist employee, who had numerous documented posts with honestly, disgusting rhetoric. this employee is one of the ones in charge of sending out arcs to readers and have now been called out for having a pattern of not sending any requested arcs to brown and muslim readers.

st. martin's silence cannot go unanswered. the actions of this employee and the company are inexcusable. today starts day one of the boycott until they take appropriate actions and create a comprehensive plan for how they will address these issues and prevent further harm.

it is encouraged that all readers and reviewers participate in this boycott.

boycott guidelines:

Books from St. Martin's Press and it's imprints will be boycotted, including Wednesday Books, Griffin, Minotaur, Castle Point Books, Thomas Dunne Books, and SMP Swerve

Books can still be bought and read under this imprint

However these books will not be platformed

for more information:

vivafalastinleen on tiktok (original video)

beffynicolereads on instagram (language for this post)

expertbooksmuggler on instagram + additional info/graphics

[aaronstveit]

St. Martin's Press Boycott

From the Readers for Accountability Toolkit:

The boycott of St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, and other related imprints is a direct response to the publisher’s lack of accountability regarding a) statements made by an employee in their marketing department and b) their failure to respond to concerns about possible systemic issues within the department.  

This employee, who we will not name, posted Islamophobic, queerphobic, and anti-Palestinian content on their personal (but public) social media. This included pinkwashing and use of the term ���pallywood” which is used to imply that videos of Palestinians being murdered or brutalized by Israeli soldiers are fakes.  

This content was shared in Instagram stories and was brought to our attention by Palestinian activist and content creator @vivafalastinleen.  

Leen noted that while she is on the St. Martin's Press influencer list, she never seemed to receive any of the ARCs she requested. Other Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian creators had previously noted the same thing. 

Leen further noticed that her white counterparts, with a comparable or smaller following, would receive these ARCS regularly and without issue. She began to question if this was a symptom of the employee's bigotry or perhaps a systemic issue within the marketing department at this publisher when she was made aware of the posts shared by this employee.  

Leen attempted to reach out to St. Martin's Press when the employee's posts came to light, but struggled to receive a response and was largely ignored. Other influencers and content creators reached out as well with similar results. However, Leen did eventually receive an email from Brant Janeway. 

The response, however, was dismissive and defensive with no action being taken to investigate. 

The boycott was officially enacted after ten days of radio silence from St. Martin's Press and Wednesday books. During those ten days, content creators were emailing, DMing, commenting, and making videos to demand that St. Martin's Press make a statement to no avail. 

As such, Leen created a video that provided other creators with context for the boycott. This video also included a large number of screenshots and significant context explaining why those screenshots are so dangerous. Twitter likes were also included to provide evidence of how deep the employee's bigotry runs. 

R4A have since then assisted in bringing attention to this issue by providing education and resources for the boycott. This includes a petition outlining our demands and urging St. Martin’s Press to hold their staff accountable to the MacMillan Code of Conduct.

While St. Martin’s Press has largely remained silent despite resuming posting like normal on their socials, they did take the time to unfollow two prominent BIPOC creators within the community including @satrayreads and @vivafalastinleen.  

An email was sent from R4A to St. Martin’s Press on 12/14/23 outlining our concerns and issues with St. Martin’s Press and a response was received on 12/15/23. This response failed to meet the demands of the boycott and was heavily focused on equitable ARC distribution. As such, the boycott continues and further updates will be shared as the situation develops.

This boycott means that while you can buy and read books published by St. Martin's Press and its imprints, you should not platform this. This means not marking them as 'read' or 'reading' on Goodreads, not reviewing them, and not posting them on social media. Yes, even Tumblr. To learn more about this boycott, check out Readers for Accountability on Instagram, or this article by Prism Reports.

Participation:

Participating in the St. Martin's Press boycott can be as simple as no longer promoting books from St. Martin's Press or related imprints on your social media, websites, and review spaces. Participants are asked to withhold ALL reviews of these books until demands are met, including on Goodreads and NetGalley. Additionally, we are asking that participants avoid promoting these books in any way during this time. This includes master lists, reading recaps, and other similar posts. However, readers can still purchase and read these books in order to reduce harm done to the authors.

Additionally, participants are encouraged to share posts about the boycott, make their own posts, and utilize the templates and graphics we have provided you to keep the momentum going.

Research a book's publisher before you post about it, even here on Tumblr. If it is published by St. Martin's Press or one of its imprints (Wednesday Books, Castle Point Books, St. Martin's Essential, Minotaur Books, and St. Martin's Griffin), do not platform it.

Check out @/readersforaccountability on Instagram for more information. All text here aside from the final indented paragraph comes from their toolkit, which includes more information and more ways you can help the people of Palestine.

[ofmermaidstories]

Omg what is the book bc I have a very strong hunch 👀

LOL i’m not naming it bc it’s apart of the St. Martin’s Press boycott, but maybe that narrows down the scope regardless? 🥹 i just!!! like, okay, at the end of the day, like all preferences, it’s just my taste in things. 😔🔫 enemies-to-lovers is an incredibly hard sell to me because generally in real life, when people are rude to me, i don’t stick around for more!!! and that might also be a brown girl thing, too—like, at this stage in my life if a man is being an active asshole to me i do tend to assume it’s because he’s some flavour of racist LMAO.

i don’t bring that hangup into fics—not even x readers bc tbh i rarely imagine Y/N reflective of me—because there’s always a more benign context as to why so-and-so is being a dick, but it is something i keep in mind when im holding a real life book. even if both the characters are white!!! how it’s approached in a romance is very telling of the author’s life experiences i think (i mean that gently—writing tells on us all and i don’t think it’s a bad thing. sometimes though it does just mean recognising when maybe we’re outside of the audience).

[harryforvogue]

idk if everyone knows but divine rivals and ruthless vows are apart of wednesday books which is under st. martins press who had an employee post anti palestinian and islamophobic things. there's a marketing/social media boycott going around but idk if people are even comfortable consuming their books rn.

ah i didn’t know that thank you for letting me know

[triviareads]

No worries! Looking back they didn't post anything on their main page asking to withhold the title but they did repost a couple of people saying that posting the name of the book in the PR box is crossing the picket line. Several organizers also said this on their personal pages so that's probably where I got that. Which in turn, made my brain associate posting the title of the book in ANY capacity as crossing the picket line and I didn't really get why the list might be different!

Good to know! I knew there was a reason I still don't know what the title is (and nor have I bothered to search). I think framing matters but ultimately, in the short period of time after the PR boxes were sent, not naming the book was the right call if the boxes were sent in a desperate attempt to solicit ANY publicity whatsoever. I imagine as time goes on, that book might be named as a book people are NOT reviewing until SMP fully answers the concerns of the boycott (not whatever BS they posted last week), something I have seen some reviewers do while @ing SMP.

[aroaessidhe]

It's been 274 days since the Saint Martin's Press boycott started, and they still refuse to take any of the simple actionable steps laid out by Readers For Accountability, to prove that they can protect the influencers they work with.

Learn more about the boycott on the R4A website

Sign the petition that has already accumulated over 8k signatures! 

Email St. Martin’s Press as you would your representatives. 

Do not review or post about any book from a SMP imprint.

[writergracethepanda]

4. A few books you’d recommend??

Obviously the Secret Shanghai series and the Aru Shah books.

I'd also recommend The Jasmine Throne (adult, sapphic fantasy), Don't Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban (adult, sapphic historical romance), The Jane Austen Murder Mysteries by Tirzah Price, the Tyme series by Megan Morrison, The Whatever After Series by Sarah Mlynowski, and some other stuff that I won't mention because I am participating in the boycott against St. Martin's Press.

[libraryleopard]

August reads

Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Under a Dancing Star by Laura Wood

Covenant vol. 1 by Lysandra Vuong

Swift River by Essie Chambers

When Among Crows by Veronica Roth

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

Don’t Let It Break Your Heart by Maggie Horne

Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles 

Dragonfall by L.R. Lam

Outlawed by Anna North

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

Don’t Be a Drag by Skye Quinlan

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblayy

The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues by Beth Lincoln

Four Squares by Bobby Finger

Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go: Stories by Cleo Qian

Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

A Short History of Trans Misogyny by Jules Gill-Peterson

Heed the Hollow by Malcolm Tariq

What Does Israel Fear From Palestine? by Raja Shehadeh

Division Bells by Iona Datt Sharma

Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

Consolation Songs edited by Iona Datt Sharma

Goldenrod by Maggie Smith

Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews

Something to be Proud Of by Anna Zoe Quirke

A Hundred Lovers by Richie Hofmann

Flamer by Mike Curato

Ask the Brindled: Poems by No’u Revilla

Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary by Toshio Meronek and Miss Major

Social Queue by Kay Kerr

Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night by Iona Datt Sharma and Katherine Fabian*

St. Martin's Press title (is there still a social media boycott on this publisher?)

[abiiors]

bro the st martin’s press statement after TEN FUCKING MONTHS is such a fucking joke like… jfc tell me you’re now scrambling from the boycott